


The Collector of Names

by Raynidreams



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Death, Gen, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-13
Updated: 2017-10-13
Packaged: 2019-01-16 18:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12348054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raynidreams/pseuds/Raynidreams
Summary: Flash fic. Canon setting, AU future scene: the battle at the end of the War. Jon sits with a dead body.





	The Collector of Names

**Author's Note:**

> /1 I'm playing fast and loose with what powers/the purpose behind The Faceless Men because I can.  
> /2 Written because I daydreamed it.

Jon remained where he'd collapsed, mind blank, his feet and hands as numb. Beside him, sword arm splayed across the chest, the other stretched out over red-stained ice, a body lay. Jon didn't move from it. He couldn't.

Night fell, and the sounds of distant battle receded. No stars arrived. The snow came down in a barrage to melt on his aching face. It began to lay on the body. He brushed it off. The wind set down more. It wailed through the hollow places between his ribs and gradually dulled whatever senses he had left.  He had no warning until the figure stood fully over him.

Jon blinked and parted cracked, bleeding lips. "You can't have her," he whispered. He willed energy to power in his legs so that he might stand.

The figure before him knelt and reached a hand out.

"No," Jon tried again. He weakly pushed his sword point into the snow, galvanising himself for defence.

The figure removed its hood and tilted its head enquiringly. Jon stilled and then sank back. He saw red and white hair rather than unearthly blue eyes and sunken skin. _Alive_ , he thought.

"A man is not here to take what is not his to take," the figure said to Jon. The figure, a man, then looked at the body. "A girl is dead," he added.

Jon already knew that truth, but hearing it spoken aloud was as painful as dragonglass to the heart. He took a halting breath. "The girl was, Arya Stark," he replied. They were simple words and expressed the most basic of hurts: grief.

The man cupped the supine body's cheek. "A lovely name for a lovely girl."

Despite circumstances, a smile ghosted Jon's lips at hearing her described so and what he imagined would be her reaction to it. His smile was swiftly followed by another shaft of overwhelming pain.

"Aye," he agreed softly.

The kneeling man sighed meaningfully. "A pity--" he said.

Jon nodded, eyes firmly closed, as the man spoke on.

"--yes, a great pity, for Arya Stark is a name a man knows but whom is not on a man's list."

Jon's lashes fluttered open. He watched as the other man took a phial from his pocket and poured water from it into a bowl he already held. He put the bowl to the body's lips, pressed its jaw so the lips opened, then trickled some of the liquid within. He shifted and opened the clothing covering the body's unmoving chest to expose where the Walker's blade had speared the heart in the same moment as the body had reciprocally slit the Walker's throat. He poured water into and over the heart wound. Iced blood melted and ran across the body's breasts.

On the surface of his mind, Jon thought to question or shout at the man, yet in the quieter more meditative reassess of his self, he understood.

Water washed away the blood as it did the wound.

The wind screamed louder in his ears and his vision grew fainter. His old wounds ceased itching. Exchanges had to be made for nothing could be created out of nothing. Jon accepted the trade and rested his head back.

 

*** 

The bare chest of the body rose once and fell. It paused, and then repeated the movement. It carried on repeating it.

The man replaced the bowl and phial in his cloak and appeared to consider the body. The weakened body grew in strength and a girl opened her eyes. They were grey still and not blue.

"Who are you?" the man asked.

The girl ran her tongue around her frozen lips. She coughed violently before she was able to reply, "A girl is, Arya Stark of Winterfell." She twisted her face to one side and heaved out old brown blood.

The man raised an eyebrow. He then pulled his cowl up, covering his expression. "A girl will not always be Arya Stark of Winterfell. A girl will one day be no one."

The girl put hands either side of her body and pushed herself to sitting. She covered her chest and finally looked to her brother.

"Yes, but not today," she whispered.

Jon gazed back at her, his eyes like mirrors.

It was a terrible thing for them to have survived for so long, never to see one another to speak: the battlefield the place of their reunion. Silently, she moved one hand and collected her dagger. Again she moved, this time to retrieve the hilt to Needle: the blade had shattered when she'd swung it in an arc, saving Jon's life and sacrificing her own having left herself open. Tears flowed down her cheeks at the broken weight of the sword in her hand. It belonged in the crypt, together with the family it had stood for, for so long.

A larger hand covered her own and she looked to its owner. Jon was smiling at her, awed.

"I don't think you need any further lessons," he told her.

"It's a good job," she said, "It's not got a pointy end any more."

They met in an embrace as if charmed together.

The other man, forgotten, stood. At length, he spoke. "When the Many Faced God is given Arya Stark's name, a man will ensure he knows another man's name."

Arya and Jon drew apart and looked up. The man bowed to them and turned away.

"Why?" Arya asked.

The man carried on walking as he replied, "So that they can be together, of course." He was gone in a moment.

In the distance, there was a wolf howl. A second later, it was joined in its song.

 


End file.
